St. Martin Church Confirmations 1703-1740 A-L

The town of Hohnhorst is located about 30 kilometers east of the city of Hannover and just south of the Steinhuder Meer. Formerly, this area was in the Hessische Grafschaf Schaumburg which together with bordering former Schaumburg-Lippe makes up the present German Province of Schaumburg in Lower Saxony.

St. Martin Church in Hohnhorst is believed to have been started in the 13th Century. However, the present church building dates from about 1900. The church is named after St. Martin who lived in the 4th century and whose name day is November 11.

The existing records of the church go back to 1603, with a break between 1741 and 1767. It is believed that the missing records (1741-1767) exist on loose pages at the church but were not included when the records were microfilmed. The towns included in the St. Martin church parish (Kirchspiel) in the 1700's and 1800's were: Haste, Helsinghausen, Hohnhorst, Mathe, Nordbruch, Ohndorf, Rehren, and Rehrwiehe.

During the mid 1800's a number of members of the St. Martin Hohnhorst parish, as well as from the neighboring parishes at Beckedorf, Lindhorst, Idensen, Nenndorf and Apelern and others, emigrated to the United States. Many of these first located in the western part of Cook County, Illinois near the present town of Schaumburg, Illinois. However, after a few years a number moved south to farm homesteads in Will County, Illinois or Lake County, Indiana, west to Bremer County, Iowa or further to Nebraska, and north to Minnesota.

For the Confirmation records of the St. Martin Church of Hohnhorst which are in part indexed below:

Those records before about 1703 usually just give the name of the confirmand and his or her town of residence

Those records after 1703 the name of the confirmand's father is usually also given

Those records after 1767 the confirmand's birthdate is added

Those records after 1833 are placed in separate books for each of the towns in the parish.

Notes by Ed Friedrich:

In the indices for the 1703 to 1740 confirmation records which follow, the page numbers refer to Hohnhorst Churchbook Two.

The column labeled as "No." refers to the order in which the names of the confirmands were listed in the year given.

The confirmations were usually performed at the age of 14 for the confirmand. Thus, an estimate of the birthyear for the confirmand may be made by subtracting 14 from the confirmation year.

In places where a question mark (?) is given for a name or residence, this could be because the name or residence is not given or because it is illegible.